i've never seen scarface either.

Hands up all of you who are 'into' dance music. Buffoons, all of you. It's witless, soulless trash.

That was me just under ten years ago. I think we've established how fickle I can be but for those of you reading this for the first time I am the crown Princess of the backtrack. I used to hate reggae too, and would whine and writhe in my seat every time my boyfriend lent over to play Lee Scratch Perry, finally sliding noisily to the floor in protest as he stared at me passively.
Now I'm sat here listening to the Orbital practically dancing my way out of the seat and across the room, occasionally breaking off typing to do some kind of nu-rave hand gesture. But that's just me, I am closer to forty than twenty these days.

I'm the same with any popular (for 'popular', read 'good') television series - Father Ted, The Mighty Boosh, Shameless, The Wire, Futurama, Spaced, Flight of the Conchords - I 've let them all sail past me and into the horizon of my interest before I'll realise that hey, this is quite good actually. I'm the twat always slavishly parroting the catchphrases long after any self-respecting individual stopped, if that is, they ever started at all, which is unlikely. That won't stop me though, this is all new stuff to me.
Actually I've just seen that I've listed The Wire there, and I've still yet to see that. That's how behind the times I am - I've come around full circle and am existing in a self-created paradox where I've actually seen the things I claim to have missed.
Such is my studied dis-interest I'm impressed I managed to be present at my own birth.

Feck! Drink! Arse ! Girls!

i fell over myself

I fell over myself trying to please you and you just stepped right over me and carried on walking.
"I'll be back for you," you'd told me, over your shoulder, "you just wait there."
I did, I waited, and time seemed to pass, and always you were on the edge of my peripheral vision, too far away to touch. After some time I started to get up, and brush myself down. I was surprised how much it hurt.

This is what I was doing when you came back,
"What are you doing ?" you said, sounding shocked, "I told you to wait for me."I barely looked at you.
"Hey!" you demanded, sounding petulant and antagonistic, "I told you I'd come back. Here I am."

But by then I was on my feet, and already you seemed smaller, and less important. If I move away you become less of me. Once it felt like it was us against the world, and now the idea of us was crystallised in a tiny fraction of a fossilised past.

I fell over myself trying to please you and you walked all over me.

not millions of fun.

The past is a foreign country. Someone brought this clumsy phrase up at me at the weekend - much like my friend Odge regurgitated a packet of sweets called 'Millions of Fun' during a trip to Cornwall and thus;
"And were they Millions of Fun, Odge ?"
"Fuck, no."
(Check for yourselves, they've actually changed the name of the sweets to just 'Millions'. I suspect the 'Fun' was reported to trading standards, because a mouthful of acidic syrupy goo could never be called 'Fun', unless excessive enjoyment tastes of sugary bile.)
Where the hell was I ?

Oh yes. The past is a foreign country. Not one you'd like to visit either, no matter how good the memories. If the past was a foreign country it would be called Memoralia and would be a hazy, indistinct blob on the end of a more self-important country (namely the Present) and would make you cringe if you were to ever have to look back through photographs of that particular holiday.
"What the HELL was I wearing ?"
"No idea Daise, do you want me to burn this one too ?"
"Yes please."

I, however, tend to revisit Memoralia a lot. For a start, it's right next door. Secondly, the cost is very low - maybe the painful tug of a memory or two - thirdly, it's safe there. Because nothing which happens there can surprise you. Do you think this sounds a bit mad ? Really, don't. We all do it, each and every one of us, more then - on average - three times a day. Show me a person who exists solely in the present and I'll show you an imbecile. A song, a smell, even a colour can remind us of something, someone, sometime and then you're already right back there, fiddling around for your passport and maybe your currency. How long you stay is up to you, but be aware, it is not a country built for living in, only for visiting.
As I said, it's not a bad place, but it is captivating, and it's easy to stay there longer than you'd planned.
However.
I once looked after a lady with no short-term memory. This meant that every fifteen minutes or less she would ask me what my name was or why I was in her house and what I was doing there, but yet she could tell me stories of her childhood, or how she met her husband, and the name of the ship he sailed on in World War II, but not whether she'd had breakfast that morning….and what was my name again ? Her knack for recounting incidents - however minor - which had occurred forty or fifty years previously bordered on uncanny - but there was no obvious cure or method with which to help her train her brain to living in the present. It is significant to note as well that I, as a crass, idiotic twenty-five year old grew frustrated with it, very quickly. Thinking back now I wish I could have supported her more, but I was young and stupid and not altogether patient enough to deal with it.
So, back to the past. There it is, spread gleaming and generous before you, as it sometimes can be, or wrapped in barbed wire with crows circling above, depending on which past it is that you're re-visiting. Just don't stay there too long. As my friend Odge would tell you it is not, in any way, Millions of Fun.

the mighty brain

I don’t often dedicate this blog to people, preferring instead to wang on pointlessly about myself, but this one is, I feel necessary.
If I were to be the patron saint of something – and now that the position of Patron Saint of Quality Footwear has been taken – I would be the Patron Saint of Getting People Wrong. I mis-judge everyone I meet, and couldn’t weigh up character if I had a gun to my head. The only way I can really work with this is to find myself defending people to my friends. That is usually a very good indicator that, once again, I have Got It Wrong.

There is one exception to this rule and that is Alex. No-one likes Alex – he is a rude, obnoxious bastard – not in a loveable rogue way – he actually is just rude and obnoxious. For years I defended him, stood up for him and stepped up to tell everyone that no, he is okay really, I know he just called you a terrible cunt yes, I heard him too, but really, he’s only joking.

A few years ago I went to a Reclaim the Streets march to protest against global multinationals and denounce capitalism as Babylon or something, it’s all a bit vague now.
Alex called me from his office in the City.
“Where are you ?”
“Penned into Oxford Circus by the police. Where are you ?”
“At my desk. In the warm. Earning a fortune.”
“Capitalist.”
“Hippy.”

A week later I found he had set up a standing order to my bank in the name of ‘Satan’ paying the sum of £6.66 every month into my account. When I quizzed him about this he simply said,
“It was you who said money was the root of all evil.”

When I got my first place in Brighton Alex put the deposit down for me, and helped out with the rent because money and I had long since fallen out beyond repair. Typically he gave me the money with the line,
“I’m loaded. Even if you tripled your salary you wouldn’t earn as much as me. Don’t worry about paying it back.”

When I went to London recently he put me up at his, didn’t complain when I stayed in playing Resident Evil 4 on his playstation while he chipped off with his friends, and when I woke up in the morning there was a note on my pillow saying,
‘You need to shoot the chainsaw guys with the shotgun. It’s the only thing which works.”

There is more to our friendship than money and playstations obviously, although not much more. To me the boy is proof that sometimes, or maybe only really this once, I got someone just right.

Cheers, Alex.

Working for the Department of Wishful Thinking

I’m handing out some awards. You don’t need to bother putting on a frock or a suit, it’s not that kind of occasion. But you could at least have made some effort with your hair you scruffy git.

Award for Film I’ll Never Understand
Terry Gilliam for Tideland. I watched this last night. Like the fevered dream you’d have after knocking yourself unconscious with a copy of Alice in Wonderland in one hand and Deliverance in the other, I understood precisely four minutes of it, and that includes the credits.

Award for Cowardice Beyond Measure
The shopkeeper who, upon having a knife drawn on him and the contents of his till demanded by some Brighton thug, pointed at my friend who was also in the shop and said;
“She’s probably got more in her bag than I have in here. You should be robbing her, not me.”

Song Most Likely to Bowl Me Over Every Time
Summer Babe by Pavement. Every time.

Person I’m Most Likely to End up Hurting Physically
My boss. I don’t have a violent bone in my tiny body but he is the singular most frustrating and aggravating individual I’ve ever met, and I’ve known a few.
This is the order I would do it; Chinese burn, knuckle rap with a ruler, slap across the face, that thing where you bend their fingers back, Chinese burn again and a roundhouse to the head that would make Chuck Norris proud.

drunk and in charge

I'm not very good at many things. Pole vaulting. Computer programming. Concentrating.....Ooooooh look! A penny.
One thing I managed to excel at this weekend though was drinking. Or rather I didn't. I had enough to floor a horse I'm sure, but found myself having the swift kick of recollection the next day that leaves you simultaneously startled and confused.

Example 1

Speaking to my friend Gordon on the morning after the night before when I felt as though the inside of my head had been licked out by a hound.
"Emma said you'd been having a bit of a rough time at the moment. Why didn't you tell me ? You know we can talk about these things."
This much is true, so I thought back, with the slow careful progress of a tightrope walker.
"I know, I know" I intoned thinking, 'Who told Emma that ?'
"She said you'd poured your heart out to her in the pub after I left."
"Emma was there ?"
"Yes. I left before her."
"You were there ?"
"Daisy." Gordon said, in tones reserved for the elderly. "We had dinner together."

Example 2.

Somehow we ended up staying in a friend's pub until late. I made a small and rather heartfelt speech about how much I respected and loved all my friends, and then had a protracted and badly concealed argument with one of them for deleting a text from my phone before I'd had a chance to read it.

Example 3.

Upon leaving the pub at about stupid-o-clock in the morning light, and having gained back possession of my phone, I received a mysterious message made all the more cryptic by it's content."What does it say ?" said Justin, lurching up the hill, with Tina under one arm.
"Something about posting me a cd, and glad I liked the music," I said, " Must be a mistake."
"That's Steve. My mate. You were just talking to him."
"When ?"
"In there. He was playing you some music on his i-pod."
"You mean Stuart, right ?"
"No, I mean Steve. You kept calling him Stuart. Then you gave him your address, so he could send you a c.d"
"My HOME address ? TO A STRANGER ?"
"You gave him AN address Daise. I've no idea which one it was."

It's still coming back to me, in waves. Seeing my old housemates, the skaters from Bath, in a pub in Bath, and marvelling at how they were there.
"I can't believe you're here !".
"We live here, Daisy, it's a small town."
Telling a very lovely girl that she should enter the Lovely Girl competition on Craggy Island. Fighting with a cat, and losing. I still have scratches up one arm. Begging Tina and Justin not to move to Bristol and then five minutes later listing all the reasons why they should.
What's worse is the things which aren't coming back to me. Sam looking bemused at something I'd said, which is still stubbornly refusing to surface in my mind. A raspberry beret. Standing out the back of the pub at four in the morning with some people I've never met before and talking....talking....talking....I've no idea what about. Odge always tells me this is the POINT of drink. It's true to some extent, but I feel for those in my company who aren't as drunk as me, which luckily rules out most of the people that weekend, including Stuart, or Steve, or whatever his name was.

coco-not.

Oh dear. At work, with quite an important client, listening to a news report about Kurt Westergaard – the Danish cartoonist who sparked a near jihad with a caricature of Mohammad.
The tone of the report was pretty grim, and at one point the newsreader said
“….there was a bounty on his head….”
At which point I quipped,
“….and coconut in his hair.”

The client stared me down, and I wished for a delorean.

the aquatic grim reaper of death

What do you know about goldfish ? Probably about as much as me which is why mine have met several nasty or protracted ends over the last few years.
I initially bought them because I like to watch them. Two shimmering flashes darting round a glass bowl, gills heaving, mouths puckered in that absurd way which goldfish have. I love being underwater, suspended in a weightless galaxy of silent, slow moving transition, no sound but the limber pace of your heartbeat and above, the distant crash of waves. Watching them gives me something of an echo of that. It's peaceful. The Chinese consider goldfish fortuitous, especially for money, and although I ate one a while back in Indonesia (it was pretty good, incidentally) both Indonesian and Malaysian peoples hold them in high regard in folklore and superstition.

But for a time I couldn't stop killing the bloody things. The fact was even immortalised in a song my friends recorded for me, the chorus being;
"Missus Daisy Pearce,
You kill your fish,
And that is wrong."

It seemed that no matter what I did, they all went belly up in the end. I'd wake up in the morning and the first thing to greet me was the sight of a bloated piscean body floating on the surface of it's tank or bowl. It really dented my mood first thing, which is never very good anyway. After a chat with the incredibly helpful man in our local pet shop I kept an eye out for illness - fish have a fantastic range of diseases - white spot, swim bladder, fin rot, pop eye - but the problem is that you can't have a goldfish put down, and to leave an ill fish swimming with all the others risks contaminating them. Treating the water was a preventative as opposed to a cure, and when I noticed the siamese fighter fish looking - literally - pretty green at the gills - I had only one thing I could do.

The best way to kill a tropical fish is apparently, to freeze it. It slips into a painless coma and dies. So after several moments of indecision that is exactly what I did, sealing it in a scoop of water in an airtight bag and shoving it in the deep freeze. Thinking I was 'doing the right thing' I told my housemates about it over a pint later that day.
Their jaws sagged.
"Daisy. For fucks sake."
"What ? WHAT ? IT'S THE ONLY HUMANE WAY! "

They got used to it after a while, little baggies of deceased fishes turning up in the freezer, or in the bin. Meanwhile I despaired, I have a hell of a guilty conscience under normal circumstances and at this rate I was turning into the Aquatic Grim Reaper. I don't know how these last ones have survived - they've had a few near misses - I've dropped them, moved them from house to house and at one stage nearly boiled them alive, not to mention the Sweetman incident which we won't discuss - but somehow these hardy little bastards keep on going. My friends had their revenge on me as well, by telling me exactly how long goldfish can live for. Turns out it's not the two year maximum I initially thought it was. It's anything up to fifteen years. Fifteen years ? I don't know where I'll be in the next fifteen minutes.

stitch and bitch, baby.

In the pub toward the tail end of the summer Finch was bemoaning the fact that she had nothing to keep her occupied in the evenings. While her boyfriend went to bushcraft sessions and judo or whatever it is he does Finch found herself square-eyed at the goggle box, until the early hours. Finch has always been one for hobbies and craftwork (not Kraftwerk - her music taste to the best of my knowledge has never extended to pioneering German electronica, although it should) and so she was talking about taking up an evening class in order to make proper use of her free time. To me being in the pub was a proper use of my free time and I told her this to which Finch replied;
"Daisy, don't you want to do a bit more sometimes ?"
"Well then," I said, with barely concealed annoyance at her admittedly true comment, "why don't you get Tina to show you how to knit ? She's been doing it since she was a foetus."
Tina nodded eagerly,
"Sure. I'd be happy to."
"See ? You get to make things to wear and it's cheap." I said.
"Great !" Finch was talking over me, "We can meet every week and bring food and have a stitch and bitch. It'll be genius! Wednesday good for you Daise ?"
"What ? No, no, this is your thing, not mine."
"Ah go on go on go on go on go on." said Tina, who is Irish, although I may have made this bit up.
"Can we drink ?" me again. Finch and Tina shook their heads.
"You can't drink and knit. You balls it up, you'll be dropping stitches everywhere."With incredible restraint I smiled and said through gritted teeth,
"Sure! Sounds great ! Count me in !" Tina and Finch exchanged looks and I knew my voice had gone all squeaky.

A few weeks later we were due to meet at six-thirty which gave me time for a quick couple of pints with Odge and Sweetman. At quarter past I grudgingly got to my feet and picked up my wool and needles, muttering something about 'bastard knitting bastard club'. Odge made a noise which may have been a laugh but sounded more like a strangled curse. Sweetman requested that I knit them a roll of toilet paper which they could then wash and re-use. It was with a heavy heart that I walked out of the cosy bar into the brisk wind carrying needle sharp freezing rain.
But by the time I arrived at Tina's place she had cleared a space for us all in her lounge, put on a pot of coffee and (here is the killer part) had baked a fricking cake. She sat us down and got us started and then the conversation descended into the ribald hilarity I always find myself knee deep in when I'm with certain people and not only did I find myself enjoying it but carried on with the knitting when I got home. Then I started taking it to work, prompting people to peer at me incredulously and mutter 'loser' as they walked into my office.
Fuck them, I thought, I'm a knitter, and I'm proud.

There is no moral to this tale. Once I'd knitted myself a decent pair of arm warmers I gave up for a bit, and generally forgot all about it, except for one drunken mistake in Bristol over Christmas. But when Tina suggested earlier that we start hooking up again on Wednesdays I leapt at the chance - because it's all about the company you keep and the bind of the group that means whatever happens in knit club (still a bit too close to 'shit club' for my liking) stays in knit club. It's nothing to do with the fact that we're meeting in a pub. Oh no.

three men and an idiot watching this rubbish

Over the festive period - a time when some of the worst films ever made get dragged out to clog up the schedules, usually late at night - I've found I have at least one more guilty pleasure than I first thought. I adore shit movies. Any old guff starring Jennifer Love Hewitt or - God forgive me - Steve Guttenburg and I'll be there poised for the opening credits on the couch like an especially predatory widow.
Especially if I'm hungover. Then I really will watch any old toss. I've sat through more Channel Five Family Movies than I am prepared to admit, lest I spontaneously combust with shame. On New Years Day I caught myself watching Three Men and a Little Lady with a twinge of pleasure, because there is nothing better than a bad sequel. My Girl 2, Piranhas 2 (they can fly), Dr Doolittle goes Apeshit or whatever it was called, The Exorcist: The Beginning - described in the Guardian Guide as 'an unnecessary prequel' - sounds aces, as does Jackie Chan's The Tuxedo ('a misfiring comedy'). However, in watching Chan flip about the screen as though he is made of rubber I miss 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid', the multiple award winning, critically acclaimed western most often described as 'unmissable'. Unmissable perhaps, unless Chan happens to be on the other side.

The slowly dawning realisation that I would walk half a mile for a bad horror with lousy effects and a laughable plot but wouldn't lift the remote to watch 'a powerful and compelling drama' on the other side is something I'm only really half aware of.
There is more to it obviously - I have the attention span of a foetus and would only ever be described as 'highbrow' in an antonyms competition - but if I start telling you about that I miss watching 'I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.'
Seriously, it's set on an island and everything.